dungeonsfandomcom-20200223-history
Talk:Variant Greater Weapon Focus (3.5e Feat)
Unquantifiable? I don't get it, this feat is pretty clean and clear cut: it give your weapon the aptitude property. Why is it labelled as "unquantifiable"? --Mock Turtle 19:00, January 12, 2010 (UTC) :Because the aptitude quality in itself, I would surmise, is unquantifiable (at least in the tagger's eyes). Looking at it, I can understand that to some extent. Also, if you'll look at the edit summary: :If you disagree, feel free to expand on your previous question. -- Jota 19:55, January 12, 2010 (UTC) ::Well, what about the aptitude property makes it unquantifiable? I mean, I don't have a copy of the Tome of Battle open in front of me, but, doesn't the property specifically pertain to Weapon Focus? If it does, then I am failing to see anything unpredictable about the feat. If it doesn't then might I ask for a little explination about what would make it unpredictable? I still can't see what would make it so. --Mock Turtle 20:33, January 12, 2010 (UTC) :::Well, it's a +1 cost that allows you to use the Weapon Focus / Spec (some other weapon) lines with a weapon that has it on it. Which is opening up the benefit those feats provide, but not substantially so. And if you have those feats for the weapon that the aptitude property is on, the property just turns into an extra +1 hit / damage. So this feat looks really really weak, because you'd have to have all of those lines in the weapon that you would get aptitude on with this feat, and as such get a really minor benefit. So I think I'm missing interesting optimization tricks that the feat language allows, cause this looks like really minor benefit junk that is easily quantified as fighter level. And that's just not TKs style at all. - TarkisFlux 22:14, January 12, 2010 (UTC) :::: Interesting optimization: Variant Greater Weapon Focus + Blood in the Water + Lightning Mace + Keen Kukris + TWF tree + Iron Power (which stacks, though it's 3.25) gives you a crit range of 9-20 and an extra attack whenever you threaten a crit, as well as +1 cumulative to attack and damage when you crit. You could do the same with Aptitude Weapon, but this hinges on either that weapon enhancement or this feat in order to allow Lightning Mace to be used with kukris. I... definitely see that as past fighter level. Take away either this feat or the aptitude weapon and it's quickly reduced to near-fighter-ish level of balance. --Ghostwheel 22:39, January 12, 2010 (UTC) :::::Can I get a book reference for Blood in the Water and Iron Power? - TarkisFlux 22:55, January 12, 2010 (UTC) :::::: Blood in the Water is ToB, level 1 Tiger Claw stance, and Iron Power is in the Book of Vile Darkness, a class ability of the Disciple of Dispater. --Ghostwheel 23:04, January 12, 2010 (UTC) :::::::Nitpick - Iron power calls out that it does not stack with the keen property, so you'd need Improved Crit instead. So, TWF, Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus (light mace), Lightning Mace, Weapon Focus (kukri), Weapon Spec (kukri), Variant Greater Weapon Spec (kukri) or Aptitude kukris, Improved Crit (kukri), Disciple of Darkness, Expertise, Power Attack, and at least 8 levels in a prestige class and 1 level in a ToB class (or a couple more feats)... gets you all of the above at a fairly high level... it's pretty solid for that cost though, and a good bit of aptitude optimization cheese. I'm not sure that it beats out a spirited charger, especially because of the level requirement, though the massive dippage you'd need to make this happen probably broadens your horizons a bit, so I don't know that you'd want to call it 'well' past fighter level. You're still just a melee machine except for other class features you've picked up along the way. :::::::If the big benefit of it is that you get to do lots of work to allow random weapon style feats to work with rogue level ToB maneuvers I think it's a low rogue or high fighter level on its own, which seems like it would be solidly rogue for you. Especially in light of the fact that it's really all that this feat does since the other benefits you'd normally get from wielding an aptitude weapon are feats that you've already had to take with this weapon to be able to pick it up. Still, it's a very other-stuff dependent feat, so I don't care enough to push the point further. - TarkisFlux 00:02, January 13, 2010 (UTC) ::::::::Well, then wouldn't this be better at Rogue level then? --Mock Turtle 03:03, January 13, 2010 (UTC) :::::::::Yeah, I think so, because I think Ghost is overly concerned with optimization potential instead of actual power level, but it's not a big enough deal for me to get TK to edit it in (his stuff, so he would trump Ghost's assignment), take it to a vote (standard procedure for neither side budging balance issues, see here), or edit it myself (which is generally a shitty thing to do, and this lacks the peculiar and frustrating circumstances of the only time I've actually done that). So even though I disagree with his placement, I don't think he's far enough off to make a big deal out of it. - TarkisFlux 04:59, January 13, 2010 (UTC) :::::::::: CHIME TIME: Improved Critical (Kukri) for 18-20 to 15-20, Iron Power 1 for 15-20 to 12-20 and Iron Power 2 for 12-20 to 9-20. But! What people seem to forget about Aptitude Weapon is that it gives you +1 to attack per feat pertaining to the weapon. --TK-Squared 12:48, January 13, 2010 (UTC) :::::::::::Thanks for pointing out that I had missed the second boost on Iron Power 2. I'm going to take issue with your interpretation of Aptitude though. It's written "if any of the wielder's weapon use feats are specifically keyed to the aptitude weapon's type, he gains a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls". There isn't anything in that about getting multiple +1s per qualifying feat, just a straightforward IF (really broad qualifier) THEN (extra +1), where the "if any" in the statement is basically an existential quantifier construction that only applies once and the preposition on the bonus suggests a singular one. So yeah, it's not that strong, it's just saying that if you don't actually benefit from the property for a feat then it just turns into the cost equivalent in bonus (so you don't actually suffer for weilding it). Semantic deconstruction FTW! - TarkisFlux 18:20, January 13, 2010 (UTC)